Not all cultural moments are alike. There is the nuclear family, a normative situation. Then there are cultures where servants are household members. It would be unthinkable, it would cause them to pale in horror or grow queasy if you suggested that there were other ways of "doing society." Why? Because people are creatures of habit. Culture is habit writ large.

Servants are but a form of employee in our day. The live-in domestic is an oddity, and still typically considered an employee, especially for Social Security purposes. Anything else would legally be considered slavery. Our legal codes have changed with social mores. But in another culture than American?

We need to answer these questions in something other than a parochial fashion. We need to realize that our application of biblical principle (over against a rule) may look slightly different in one place than another, one time or another. We don't "greet each other with a holy kiss" the same way, either.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
Oh, that God the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
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